


Design Foresight

by Valmouth



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan)
Genre: Ears, Humor, M/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-27
Updated: 2012-10-27
Packaged: 2017-11-17 03:21:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/547084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valmouth/pseuds/Valmouth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-The Dark Knight Rises, though non-specific in terms of timeline or canon: The ears on the cowl seem to serve no purpose at all as far as Gordon can tell, though they do look... cute? Bruce doesn't like that epitaph, and figures Gordon needs a far more appropriate view of the design of his cowl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Design Foresight

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own no rights to these two characters, or to the movie, universe etc they are derived from. I mean no offence by posting this and make no money from it.

“That’s cute,” Gordon says.

Bruce, caught in the act of putting on the cowl, stops and stares. “Cute?” he echoes, a little dumbfounded.

Gordon puts his hands up and makes bunny ears. “The ears,” he says, “Kind of cute.”

Bruce’s stare gets deeply offended.

And okay, Gordon understands that. The Batman is meant to be a terrifying symbol of justice and vengeance, and the man beneath the mask is scarred and battered and almost forty. The term ‘cute’ does not sit well on either of them.

Bruce Wayne in both his incarnations is anything but cute.

Except.

“Just the ears,” Gordon clarifies.

Bruce clicks the catches on in deliberate silence. “Zsasz is out there,” he says coldly, “John’s following the tip-off. I’ll take the abandoned buildings.”

“My people will be on the streets, doorknocking. The usual.”

“I’ll be in touch.”

The night’s combined task force of police and vigilantes turns out to be a bust. They pin-point where Zsasz was, and find two more bodies, but the lunatic’s gone before they can get to him. This is the second time, and John slopes off to be angry in his apartment in the manor.

Gordon calls it quits and goes home. Leaves the window open.

“You should be more careful,” the Batman rumbles, dark bulk filling up the tiny window space.

Gordon thinks idly that it shouldn’t be possible for a man as large as the Batman to fit through a small window with such grace. Even without those ears.

It’s all so new, being able to know the man behind the mask. And more than know.

They don’t really talk about it, beyond the acknowledgement that it’s there, it’s happening, and they’re involved. He’s not even sure exactly how it started, or more to the point, who started it. He has the embarrassing suspicion that it was him.

He’s fifty eight, and he should know better.

The Batman uncoils and straightens up. All the way up, to his full height. Flowing cape wrapping around him.

On the other hand, sex with an old man is probably not the stupidest thing Bruce is doing.

The ears stick straight up. And so far as he can see, they’re the only part of Bruce’s costume that serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever. The cape becomes a flying thing – _paragliding_ , Bruce says, like the term makes it cooler – and the gauntlets are edged with blades. The suit is armoured, the cowl is graphite, the utility belt has more gadgets than a swiss army knife, and yet there are those ears.

“You’re staring at my ears,” Batman sighs.

“I’m trying to figure out what they do,” Gordon says, “You could put an antenna in them. Or store things.”

“They’re not hollow.”

“Don’t they hurt when you fall on your head?”

Even with the mask and the blacking, it’s very clear that Bruce narrows his eyes in confused annoyance. “I don’t fall on the top of my head, Jim. Sideways, mostly.”

“Still uncomfortable.”

Bruce’s jaw tenses and relaxes. “Yes,” he says repressively.

Gordon waits for a while, expecting that the usual will happen. Bruce will finally sigh and take the cowl off, and his hair will be flat and stuck with sweat into odd tufts. His eyes will have black rings around them, barely worn off, and he’ll pull off the gauntlets in favour of not shredding Jim’s ancient old armchair.

Sometimes he’ll take off the cape, sometimes he won’t.

Sometimes he’ll take off everything.

Gordon quite likes those times. Watching the Batman strip isn’t particularly sexy. Bruce’s version of stripping is more efficient than teasing. But the emergence of an expanse of pale, bruise and scar-speckled skin from the all-consuming black is erotic. No matter what Bruce does to make it look normal.

This time... this time Bruce just stands there and watches him with an odd, studious intensity. Like Jim’s an interesting specimen of something to be figured out.

“What?” Gordon asks, and, “Are you staying?”

It’s about as far as they’ve gotten towards discussing it.

And then the Batman moves.

Long legs cover the distance in a couple of steps, and then the column of black drops. Gordon’s eyebrows rise as the Batman ends up on his knees.

“Listen,” Gordon starts.

Bruce’s hands are already working on his belt buckle.

And Gordon’s wondered about it; he admits it. He’s considered it. Ever since this thing started, though he’s only thought of Bruce in the suit without the mask, face exposed without the protection of black graphite.

“Look,” Gordon starts again.

He forgets what he was going to say after that because Bruce takes his still-soft dick in one large, gloved hand.

Gordon’s brain short-circuits.

It’s mostly predictable from there on it.

Bruce licks, Gordon gets hard, Bruce kisses. At some point, Gordon says, “God, Bruce.”

Then Bruce starts to suck. Small sucking, lipping shifts against the underside before opening his mouth to take Gordon in completely.  Carefully, because they’re too old to suffer the indignity of choking on things they put in their mouths.

“Please.”

And Bruce hums contently.

Gordon digs his heel into the floor and arches and reaches out blindly.

The sight of it is bad enough. Batman’s dark, sleek, masked head bent over his groin, Bruce’s sinfully red mouth and hollowed cheeks, and then there’s the feeling. The way that tongue laps and circles and drags, the warm puff of breath against his skin.

There’s also the blunt-pointed tip of the mask’s graphite nose digging into his abdomen when Bruce goes down as far as he can. The point where it presses against him becomes a needling source of distraction that wraps itself in sweetness and starts driving him nuts.

Gordon reaches out, but there’s nothing to grab onto except the cape.

He likes the cape.

It bunches in his fist and doesn’t tear when he yanks.

But then Bruce reaches up one gloved hand and pries a hand free. Pries one hand off the cape and pulls his mouth slowly off Gordon’s cock with an obscene slipping sound and then he looks up.

Directs Gordon’s right hand to the left ear on his cowl.

“Oh God,” Gordon says weakly, and wraps his fingers around it.

It’s not perfect. His palms are sweaty and the ears are smooth. Too small and too straight. But they’re just large enough that he can tighten his grip and yank.

Bruce falls forward, suddenly graceless as he’s pulled off balance.

The nose of his mask digs into Gordon’s thigh through the bunched cloth and Bruce grunts more warm breath against him, one hand shooting out to catch himself.

Gordon traces his fingertips over the too-smooth graphite ear, calluses catching on a slightly raised imperfection in the matte black, and says, “I’m hoping you weren’t picturing this during design.”

Bruce pushes himself somewhat upright, still curled over Gordon’s lap. Hazel eyes dark and almost demonically calculating. The line of his throat shifting as he swallows, the line of his back a flow of cloth and armour and muscle.

“If you’re using full sentences,” he says, voice raw, “I’d better work harder.”

His mouth is scorching this time. And he sucks like an attack, like he’s trying to save the world.

Gordon grabs both ears and holds on and it’s ridiculous, he has enough brain power to think, before he succumbs to the heat and just rides it out, writhing beneath the onslaught.

Bruce’s tongue dips into the slit and then curls around the head and there’s the slightest graze of teeth as Bruce takes him all the way down, down, to the back of his throat.

Gordon grips the ears and pulls hard and pushes his hips up and then holds Bruce there while Bruce’s throat contracts around him once, twice, thrice, and that’s it. His world explodes into white heat and light and he loses whole seconds in the pleasure spasming through him.

When he comes to, Bruce has let him slip from his mouth, and he’s panting himself, gasping from breath control and something else, forehead against Jim’s thigh, one shoulder tensed and the line of one arm vanishing down the length of his own body, cape hiding the flex and flow of movement.

The grinding sound of the moan sends a weak pulse of heat through Gordon’s gut and it forces him to move, forces him to shake the ear he’s still loosely holding on to.

And this time Bruce lets out a sound that’s part plea and part aroused growl, and Gordon knows how this goes.

The suit doesn’t open at the waist. Protective measure, Bruce says, so nothing tears off under duress. The whole thing comes off in one piece or doesn’t come off at all so Gordon’s seen it, Bruce forcing himself not to hump against anything he can properly fit between his legs for any kind of pressure, any kind of friction, half out of his mind with frustration.

“Off,” Gordon says, “Take it off.”

Bruce is stripping so fast, so efficiently, Gordon’s just glad that he’s no longer twenty one or he’d be hard again unnaturally quick. There’s an enormous bruise across Bruce’s left shoulder blade and a long, scabbed graze across Bruce’s left side. Gordon fastens his mouth over the bruise and sucks, fingers the graze, and Bruce lets out that sound again and his legs shake.

They end up in a messy tangle on the carpet but Bruce isn’t complaining.

“Want to see you,” Gordon murmurs against a graphite ear, and Bruce actually shudders.

Gordon’s fingers groping for the catches on the cowl are brushed aside and Bruce unsnaps the mask and shoves it off hard enough to make it thud on the floorboards.

“Ssh,” Gordon says severely, “The neighbours.”

“Forget them” Bruce whispers fiercely, “Focus. Need you. Come on, Jim.”

The suit comes off and it’s Gordon’s turn. He’s boneless and relaxed and ready to sleep like the dead but Bruce is a ball of twitching nerves and it’s heady, the kind of power he’s given over the man behind the symbol.

He just hopes John doesn’t decide to pay him a late night visit.

John wouldn’t appreciate the sight of his two mentors going at it like rabbits in the front room of Gordon’s house.

Right in front of the window, too.

Gordon isn’t an exhibitionist, but he thinks of John watching what Bruce looks like when he’s right on the edge and his fingers twist just under the head of Bruce’s cock that he knows will make Bruce moan and arch, hips chasing Gordon’s fingers, trying to get more, now, please.

There are lines at the corner of Bruce’s eyes, a couple of silvery threads of grey in the dark, sweaty hair. Gordon’s seen them in bright sunlight, watching Bruce Wayne charm a socialite half his age, half-jealous, half-amused, knowing that he’s the only one who gets to see Bruce strip off his masks.

Speaking of which...

The cowl stares at them from its place on the floor.

It’s almost accusing.

Gordon stares back at it and licks at Bruce’s nipple, tightens his fingers almost painfully on Bruce’s cock.

Bruce doesn’t seem to notice.

The ears on the cowl stick straight up, like the damn mask is on alert.

Gordon watches it as he slides his mouth down Bruce’s sternum. It’s his turn, he thinks.

Bruce’s fingers in his hair stop him cold.

“You’re a little too obsessed with the Batman, Jim,” Bruce growls.

Gordon looks up and raises an eyebrow. The red flush across Bruce’s cheekbones and the bridge of his nose is almost beautiful, in spite of the ominous pull together of those heavy, dark brows. In spite of? Because of?

“It’s the ears,” Gordon says, and doesn’t grin.

“They’re not cute,” Bruce snaps.

“No,” Gordon agrees, “Now they make me think of you on your knees, with my hands dragging you in close so I can shove my dick down your throat.”

The red flush burns, and Bruce twitches under him.

“So,” Gordon says mildly, “Not cute.”

“Good.” Bruce’s voice is raw, and rough, and needy. And it cracks when he says, “Jim, please.”

Jim nods and goes down, and for a while it’s only Bruce biting back the noises he refuses to make while Gordon sucks him to the very edge and then gently, gently, tips him over.

Catches him and holds him together when he flies apart right there on the floorboards.

They’re tangled up on the floor and it’s easier to think of it as a mess of arms and legs rather than holding each other close. It’s easier to acknowledge the physical, in fact, than examine anything that may – _may!_ – verge on the emotional.

It’s one of the nights that Bruce stays. At some point in the night, Gordon wakes up to find Bruce urging him to his feet, grimacing at the sore, sweaty, sticky state of the both of them. But they tumble into Gordon’s bed and sleep for another couple of hours until the sun rises.

It’s happened often enough that Bruce keeps several changes of clothes in Gordon’s apartment. A couple of suits, a few pairs of jeans and sweatshirts. A gym bag.

The sunlight catches the emerging threads of silver in Bruce’s hair, catches the fine lines in his face. It also catches the shadow of stubble and the circles under his eyes.

Gordon pushes a cup of coffee across the kitchen counter and Bruce makes a face after the first sip but swallows it down like water.

They get dressed with a bare minimum of fuss, but when Bruce is packing the suit in the gym bag, Gordon’s the one who picks up the mask. Taps the tip of his forefinger against the point of an ear.

The pointed silence from across the room makes him look up.

Bruce glares at him and holds out a hand.

Gordon rubs the tip of his finger deliberately across the point again.

Back and forth. Back and forth. Tiny twist of the wrist and a touch of pressure.

Bruce’s eyes drop to the movement and his frown loses a little momentum. The line of his throat shifts as he swallows.

But they don’t have the time, or the energy.

Gordon wraps the mask in a towel while Bruce zips the suit into the false bottom of the bag.

It’s the sweatshirt and jeans look this morning, and Gordon quite likes this one. Thinks it makes Bruce look... unmasked. Bruce doesn’t seem to notice he’s being watched. Doesn’t notice or doesn’t care; either one, both or neither. Gordon’s never sure.

“I should leave now,” Bruce says, hefting the bag over one shoulder.

In the sweatshirt, he looks softer than he really is.

Gordon nods and returns distractedly to the tie he’s been pretending to knot for five minutes straight.

And lets Bruce walk to the door unchallenged.

Thinks of that bruise across Bruce’s left shoulder blade and the long, clotted graze across Bruce’s ribs. Thinks of the black paint that’s left streaks against his fingertips, his pillow, gurgled down his drain.

Thinks of those ears, of no apparent use except that they’re there. A part of the mask, a part of the shell. A part of Bruce and the Batman and all the more essential for it.

The sudden press of a hard chest against his back makes him jump and half turn, but the clamp of Bruce’s arm across his chest holds him still.

“Radio insert set to the police frequency,” Bruce says, “And microphones for increased hearing in the field.”

“What?”

“The ears.”

“Oh,” Gordon says, and forces himself not to fidget against the hold.

Which tightens as Bruce leans his brow against Gordon’s temple, eyes slipping closed.

“You know, you raised the volume on the settings last night when you were pulling at them. Every sound you made, Jim... Christ. Tonight,” Bruce growls into his ear, “We have to talk about this.”

The mirror Gordon’s failed to look at while the Batman came up silently behind him reflects the both of them now. Reflects the reddened curve of Bruce’s mouth and the growing flush across his cheekbones.

“Is it just the mask?” Bruce whispers.

Gordon thinks of the mask staring sightlessly at him while he worked his way down Bruce’s body.

“No,” he says, because it never has been, “It’s you. The mask’s a bonus.”

Bruce’s smile is small, barely-there, and brilliantly wicked. “Good.”

And he’s gone almost as soon as he arrived, bag over his shoulder and eyes unfocused, shoulders a little hunched, just like a hundred other men in the street, busy in their own little lives.

Gordon thinks of the point of the Batman’s nose digging into his skin, and beneath that, the red, spit-slick stretch of Bruce’s mouth around his cock, and he tightens his fingers on thin air, already missing the smooth, hard feel of the ears against his palms. Of Bruce deafened by the sound of him, and him only.

But tonight, he thinks, and shrugs into his jacket. Tonight, and maybe they’ll actually talk first.


End file.
